—Juliano Zaiden Benvindo & Fábio Almeida, University of Brasília On September 27, the Brazilian Supreme Court arguably decided the most important case on religious freedom and education rights in Brazilian history. Under scrutiny was whether religious freedom (Art. 5, VI, of the Brazilian Constitution) and religious education (Art. 210, Paragraph 1, of the Brazilian Constitution)

–Vanice Lirio do Valle, Estacio de Sá University The Brazilian political crisis is visible worldwide, due to the bombastic effects of the findings in the huge police investigation called the “car-wash operation”. From the initial imprisonment of Senator Delcidio Amaral in 2015, up to the second criminal complaint addressed to President Michel Temer who was charged

—Emilio Peluso Neder Meyer, Marcelo Andrade Cattoni de Oliveira, & Thomas da Rosa Bustamante, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, Faculty of Law. On the 17th of September 2017, Brazilian Army General Antonio Hamilton Martins Mourão, during a lecture for a Masonic Lodge in Brasília, advocated the possibility of an interference of the Armed Forces

—Tom Gerald Daly, Fellow, Melbourne Law School; Associate Director, Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law Sometimes a limp is just a limp–arising from a debilitating yet isolated injury or infection that will soon heal. However, sometimes a limp can be indicative of a degenerative disease such as multiple sclerosis. Gaining a clear diagnosis and prognosis of

—Juliano Zaiden Benvindo & Fernando José Gonçalves Acunha, University of Brasília A recurring trend in comparative constitutional law is the emerging populism, which, in its various forms, extends to places and contexts as diverse as the United States, Poland, Turkey, Hungary, the Philippines, Latin America and so forth. Brazil, which is experiencing one of its

—Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília Jon Elster once wrote that “… the task of constitution-making generally emerges in conditions that are likely to work against good constitution-making.”[1] Passion – as he puts it – prevails over reason in such turbulent circumstances. When it comes to other forms of substantial constitutional change, such as what

—Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília When delivering his speech at the Brazilian Supreme Court on December 5 on “Public Ethics and Democracy,” Michael Sandel, Professor at Harvard University, could not foresee what was about to happen that very day just some floors above the conference room. Amid a rich debate on the role of

—Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília Ran Hirschl, in his book Towards Juristocracy, raises a very thorough argument on how political, economic, and judicial elites have strategically used Supreme Courts as “a form of self-interested hegemonic preservation.”[1] As a way of keeping many of their interests virtually untouched for years, especially in democratic and pluralistic

—Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília Tom Ginsburg and James Melton, in their fascinating article “Does the Constitutional Amendment Rule Matter at All? Amendment Cultures and the Challenges of Measuring Amendment Difficulty, raise a powerful argument against the well-worn claim that the number of amendments is directly related to the flexibility of constitutions.[1] Their argument,

—Juliano Zaiden Benvindo, University of Brasília Comparative constitutional law is now faced with a rich debate over the scope, limits, and consequences of impeachment proceedings. Since the Brazilian President Dilma Roussef was temporarily suspended from office and thereby replaced by the acting President Michel Temer after the Senate had voted to begin an impeachment trial

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